Winners

Royal College of Art Postgraduate Art & Design

Mycelium Architecture

Temporary Permanence questions the role of biodegradable materials in architecture, by exploring how lightweight structures can be farmed and used as alternative archetypes.

The ability of Mycelium to bind to any surface allows it to re-purpose, repair and re-imagine existing structures whilst its aesthetic properties uncover new typologies that lie between the geometric and the grotesque.

Innovation Design Engineering, 2018Amir Afshar

Amir Afshar is a 28-year-old British-Iranian Creative Technologist, currently studying a dual Master’s in Innovation Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London.

His work focuses on exploring how emergent technology will affect our future societies, whether in the implications of AR / VR for the future of architecture, or in hardware solutions to challenge AI video manipulation.

As a multidisciplinary designer, previously trained as an architect, Amir’s approach is to imaginatively tackle projects at varying scales, from a fascination with material-based innovation, to wearables that enhance our senses and the city scale implications of autonomous vehicles.

His current projects include a series of machines that transform lobster shells into bioplastics and form them, and an exploration into the implications of architectural ceramics.

The Comment from RCA

Paul Anderson, Dean of the School of Design

We’re delighted that The Pokémon Company, known for pushing the boundaries in design and technology, has chosen to invest in our students. Their generous scholarships will change the lives of these students and expose them to a new culture of thinking and design.

‘Our Innovation Design Engineering student, Amir Afshar, is a wonderful multidisciplinary designer who is focused on exploring how emergent technology will affect our future societies. This is demonstrated by his dissertation around the implications of augmented and virtual realities for the future of architecture, or in his hardware solution to challenge AI video manipulation.

SoftServe

When you mix PVA, shaving foam and contact lens solution together something magical happens; a super stretchy rubbery material is formed.

Fascinated by the trend of children doing polymer chemistry in their homes with non-toxic ingredients, Soft Serve pushes slime one step further and explores what the implications of home manufacture and play with these ingredients could be.

Spaces Available

Spaces Available is a project that reimagines how streets and architectures can be re-programmed in response to advances in autonomous vehicles.

Voyce

Leveraging a similar mechanism to a theremin, Voyce is a haptic waistband that gives users the sensation of electroreception. This waistband allows users to interact and communicate with objects without touching them.

Exploring Waste Ceramics

An exploration into what the structural possibilities of a clay body regarded as a unusable waste could be.

Chitosan Bioplastic (Detail)

Detailed macro-structure of a bioplastic made from Lobster Shells.